It is that time of the year again. In just a few hours we will be going to a pumpkin patch/Christmas tree farm to pick out pumpkins for carving. This annual trip always reminds me that the year is almost over. If your company follows the calendar year, or close to it, you can expect to start getting more and more calls, emails, and visits about making sure you get this done, finish this, where are we on this, can you update me on x. People often has this mentality of a foot race when the end of the year approaches, here we come down the home stretch, lets kick it into high gear to see how much time we can shave off before the finish and possibly win. Which is all fine and great, just make sure that you are prepared for it, type up a few lines for each of your outstanding projects and send them off in email to your stakeholders, this will likely avoid that status update call, or at least make it shorter. It will also help you focus on what is important to get done and help keep you focused as you have more of those conversations in the hallway, where the real topic is to turn your focus towards what ever project they want you to work on.
As an example, I am currently deeply involved in a project that has nothing to do with SMS, I sit in a different building, I am on conference calls with clients over seas, I have to put off meetings for other projects, and SMS just maintains instead of progressing. But I also know that I have some cool stuff coming up with SMS and I have several secondary sites that need to be deployed before the end of the year. I just got a copy of SoftGrid (thanks Richard) on Friday and during lunch I was going through the manuals. I have other projects that have dates that are slipping because of this one project, but I also know that when it ends, I will return most of my focus to SMS and group policy. So while SMS is not my focus right now I don’t let it get to far out of reach and I don’t let the other projects I have take me away from the project I am working on right now. When I get calls or emails about other tasks, I let them know I am working on something else and it takes most of time, I give them over generous time estimates to give myself some wiggle room. I also make sure my director, and sometimes my project sponsor and some other higher ups are included on my replies. This gives everyone involved an update without really having to talk to them, and if the originator wants more attention, they have the right people on the email when they reply. As with everything, this does not always work, some people will not care what you are doing, but once again it is up to you to make sure you don’t get turned around. Keep your focus on what is most important for the company and you.
One last example, think of it as if you were a pilot, your flight may have been delayed and you have several hundred passengers (stakeholders) wanting to get to their own destinations (projection completion before EOY) but you have a list of preflight checks that have to be done before you get pushed out on to the runway, you can’t skip any, you can’t skim over them, you can’t assume they are okay. You have to go over each and every one without fail, you can’t let rumblings from the cabin distract you or pressure you into skipping a few checks, you have to remain focused and get them (your highest priority) done because you know that if you don’t it could result in several hundred lives being lost, and your life (career) would be over too. The Columbia shuttle accident comes to mind for what could happen if you don’t hold up to this pressure.
It gets hard this time of year as everyone wants to put down that their projects were finished, but don’t let their over aggressive requests send you in the wrong direction.
Anthony Clendenen
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